Scheda programma d'esame
ENGLISH LITERATURE C
ROBERTA FERRARI
Academic year2020/21
CourseEURO-AMERICAN LANGUAGES, LITERATURES AND PHILOLOGIES
Code1303L
Credits9
PeriodSemester 1
LanguageItalian

ModulesAreaTypeHoursTeacher(s)
LETTERATURA INGLESE CL-LIN/10LEZIONI54
ROBERTA FERRARI unimap
Obiettivi di apprendimento
Learning outcomes
Conoscenze

NB:  IL CORSO SI TIENE NEL PRIMO SEMESTRE - INIZIO LEZIONI 22 settembre 2020

LINGUA DEL CORSO: INGLESE

PER VISUALIZZARE IL PROGRAMMA CARICARE LA PAGINA IN LINGUA INGLESE  

 

THE COURSE WILL BE HELD IN THE FIRST SEMESTER, STARTING ON 22nd SEPTEMBER 2020. 

COURSE LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PLEASE CLICK ON THE BRITISH FLAG TO VISUALIZE 

Knowledge

At the end of the course the student will possess a thorough knowledge of:

  • the genre of the "historical novel" and its development through the centuries,  from the Romantic period to the present;
  • the methodologies of analysis of narrative texts;
  • the cultural and literary context from the early 19th to the late 20th century;
  • the cultural and literary theoretical debate from the early 20th century to the present.

 

Assessment criteria of knowledge

Acquired knowledge will be assessed through:

  • an oral report in class and a written paper which will verify the acquisition of specific knowledge and understanding of the narrative genre of the "historical novel" from the early 19th to the late 20th centuries, as well as the capability to discuss specific critical and theoretical issues in context;
  • a final oral exam in which students will have to demonstrate a good knowledge of cultural and literary theories; they will also be expected to illustrate and analyse primary sources belonging to various genres and periods of English literature and to discuss secondary sources providing different critical approaches.  

 

Skills

At the end of the course  students will be able to:

  • apply advanced methodological and theoretical tools to the analysis of narrative texts, in particular historical fiction;
  • read, analyse and report orally on critical or theoretical essays concerning literary and cultural issues variously connected with the central topics of the course;
  • contextualise narrative texts within the cultural and literary background from the early 19th to the late 20th century;
  • plan and write an argumentative essay in English on one of the topics of the course;
  • gather and interpret relevant data;
  • communicate, both orally and in written form, their conclusions, and the knowledge and rationale underpinning them, in a clear and unambiguous way;
  • comment on various aspects of literary texts;
  • illustrate and discuss literary and cultural topics. 
Assessment criteria of skills

Students will be required to prepare an oral report in English based on a critical essay dealing with one of the topics of the course. 

Students will also be asked to write a paper in English (2500 to 3000 words) discussing one of the course topics. 

The final oral exam will test the students' capacity to comment on various aspects of literary texts, to use appropriate tools to deal with specific textual questions, as well as to illustrate and discuss literary and cultural topics.  

Behaviors

The course aims at preparing students to be able to manage both oral and written work, to discuss and negotiate meanings, to support and/or disclaim critical positions.

They will also be expected to handle data (bibliography and online materials) in a transparent, responsible way.

Assessment criteria of behaviors

The students' communicative skills, as well as their capacity to negotiate and discuss meanings, will be tested during the oral report, which will also show their skill in supporting or disclaiming a critical position. 

The maturity in handling data in a responsible way will be mainly tested through the written paper. 

 

Prerequisites

Students are expected to possess an adequate level of English to be able to follow lectures, discuss literary topics, make an oral presentation, and write an essay in English. 

Students are also expected to already possess a sound knowledge of English literary history from its origins to the contemporary.

 

Teaching methods

Teaching will mainly consist in lectures, but class discussion will be strongly encouraged; the last part of the semester will be devoted to oral reports.

Elearning page of course: the course page on the elearning platform will be used to share materials (primary and secondary texts; material for oral report and written paper, information about timetables, deadlines, etc...).

Teacher/student interaction: weekly office hours; email.

Language of course: English

 

Syllabus

This course consists of two different modules:

 

Module A: 54 class hours, The “Otherness of History”: The Historical Novel from Scott to the late 20th century.

 

Module B independent work: list of primary and secondary sources 

 

MODULE A:

The course intends to introduce students to one of the most fertile areas of contemporary theory, the controversial debate on the relationship between history and narrative or, to put it differently, on the “construction” of history within narrative texts.

The introductory part of the course will be devoted to delineating a theoretical and methodological framework through the illustration of specific approaches such as Historiographic Metafiction and Trauma Theory. The course will also take into account the transformations of the “historical novel” as a genre, from its beginnings in the early 19th century to the late 20th century, when the phenomenology and functions of historical writing appear interestingly varied.

MODULE B

Module B consists of a list of readings to be contextualized within the panorama of English Literary and Cultural History.

Bibliography

MODULE A

a/ Primary sources

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, ed. by Ian Duncan, OUP, 1996.

 

A choice of two among the following novels:

 

Graham Swift, Waterland (1983), Picador, 1992.

Peter Ackroyd, Chatterton (1987), Sphere Books, 1988.

Ian McEwan, Black Dogs (1992), Vintage, 1998.

Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997), Harper, 1998.

 

b/ Secondary sources

Anne H. Steven, "The Formation of a Genre" (1-20)  and "Epilogue: Ivanhoe  and Historical Fiction" (150-163), in British Historical Fiction before Scott, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Del Ivan Janik, "History and the 'Here and Now': The Novels of Graham Swift", Twentieth Century Literature, 35 (1), 1989, pp. 74-88.

Dana Shiller, "The Redemptive Past in the Neo-Victorian Novel", Studies in the Novel, 29 (4), 1997, pp. 538-560. 

Muller-Wood, Anja and Wood, J. Carter,  "Bringing the past to heel: History, identity and violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs", Literature and History, 16 (2), 2007, pp. 43–56.

Roberta Ferrari, Ian McEwan, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2012 (Chapter on Black Dogs).  

Roberta Ferrari, "'Children who will inherit the world': Childhood and History in Graham Swift and Arundhati Roy”, in R. Ferrari – L. Giovannelli (a c. di), The Complete Consort. Studi di Anglistica in onore di Francesco Gozzi, PLUS, Pisa 2005, pp. 345-370.

Theory

Linda Hutcheon, "Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History" (3-32), in Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction, ed. P. O'Donnell and Robert Con Davis,  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Shoshana Felman, “Education and Crisis, Or the Vicissitudes of Teaching” (1-56) and Dori Laub, “Bearing Witness or the Vicissitudes of Listening” (57-74), in S. Felman and D. Laub, Testimony. Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis, 1992.

Further criticism will be suggested during the course.

 

MODULE B

 

STUDENTS WHO HAVE NEVER TAKEN THIS EXAM

Primary sources:

Thomas Kyd, The Spanish Tragedy, any edition.

T.S.Eliot, The Waste Land/La terra desolata (1922), introduzione, traduzione e note di Alessandro Serpieri, Rizzoli, 1982.

T.S.Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”; “Ulysses, Order and Myth” any edition.

Tom Stoppard, Arcadia,  any edition.

 

Secondary sources:

Molly Smith, "The Theater and the Scaffold: Death as Spectacle in The Spanish Tragedy", Studies in English Literature. 1500-1900, Vol. 32, no. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 217-232. 

Francesco Gozzi, Letture eliotiane, ETS, 2003 ("Introduction", pp. 5-17 and Chapter 2 "The Waste Land"pp.61-102).

Enoch Brater, “Playing for Time (and Playing with Time) in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia”, Comparative Drama, Vol. 39, no. 2 (Summer 2005), pp. 157-168.

Literary history/Literary and cultural Theory:

Peter Barry, Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, Manchester and New York, Manchester UP, 20092.

 


STUDENTS WHO HAVE ALREADY TAKEN THIS EXAM

Primary sources:

Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey, any edition. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9909

James Joyce, Ulysses, Episodes I-II-III-IX, any edition.

W.B. Yeats, "Easter 1916" and "Sailing to Byzantium", any edition.

Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two Birds, any edition.

 

Secondary sources:

James Mulvihill, "Peacock's Nightmare Abbey and the 'Shapes' of Imposture." Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 34 (1995), pp. 553-68.

Francesco Gozzi, Fuori del labirinto, Pisa, ETS, 1993  (Introduzione; Episodi I-II-III-IX).

George Bornstein, "Yeats and Romanticism" and Daniel Albright "Yeats and Modernism", in M. Howes and J. Kelly (eds), The Cambridge Companion to W.B. Yeats, CUP, 2009, pp. 19-35 and 59-76.

Roberta Ferrari, La scrittura come travestimento dell’io. La narrativa di Flann O’Brien, Pisa, ETS, 1995.

 

 

Non-attending students info

Students who cannot attend classes will necessarily take an oral exam (Module A + B together), starting from the winter session (January – February 2021).

Assessment methods

Module A will be assessed through an evaluation of the oral presentation (1/3) and of the written paper (1/3).

Written papers must be submitted at least ten days before the oral exam.

Module B will be assessed by an oral examination in English (1/3), during which students will be expected to discuss the primary sources by analyzing them from a stylistic, thematic and linguistic point of view, as well as by contextualizing them within their literary period.  Students are also expected  to be able to delineate and discuss in general terms the development of literary and cultural theory from Structuralism to Post-structuralism and the most recent trends. It is also expected that students will have  a thorough knowledge of English Literary History from the beginnings to the contemporary. 

 

Note

Le lezioni inizieranno martedì 22 settembre, ore 10.15

Notes

The course will start on 22nd September 2020, at 10.15 a.m.

Updated: 20/09/2020 16:25